[OS X TeX] Unexpected quotation marks

[Robert Spence]

On 09 Jun 2007, at 19:28 , Michael Kubovy wrote:

> Oh, I'm perfectly happy to give 'em muck.

I immediately regretted the wording of that suggestion.  After all,  
as Linotype says:
"The Palatino™ typeface was first designed over 50 years ago by  
Hermann Zapf, and is probably the most universally admired and used  
of his type designs."
And in any case, what Dame Nellie Melba really said (to Dame Clara  
Butt, about Australian audiences) was: "Sing 'em muck, it's all they  
understand."

> But I do like to produce the best-looking document I can (perhaps  
> to compensate for weaknesses in the content).In any event, I  
> discovered that NIH grants may be submitted in Georgia as well.  
> Even though it looks somewhat archaic (it's darker, and the  
> numerals are either the size of a lc letter, e.g., 1; or they rise  
> to the height of an uc letter, e.g., 8, or they descend below the  
> baseline, e.g., 9). Other than those weaknesses, I don't see the  
> sorts of aesthetic flaws as I have just learned are a feature of  
> Palatino.

I'm not sure it's just an aesthetic flaw... more of a conceptual  
one.  If the idea was to avoid having opening and closing quotes a  
different shape, why opt for a shape that makes everyone say "those  
aren't double opening quotes, those are two apostrophes" or something  
similar? i.e., why choose a "closing" shape rather than a straight up- 
and-down one?  Apart from the issue of the quotation marks, Palatino  
is a remarkable font---everything looks chiselled---really sharp and  
clear.

> Any views on the aesthetic pros and cons of the two typefaces?

This is a real can of worms. It's almost as bad as asking people what  
their favourite text editor is.  For me, Georgia connotes arty blogs,  
and nineteenth century printing;  Palatino suggests Renaissance Italy  
colliding with postmodernism.  The main issue though would be:
"What role do numerals play in your text?"

If there's any suggestion of math in the grant application, then  
Palatino would probably be better.  Apart from that, it probably  
doesn't make much difference.  Are there any studies on the  
psychological effect of different typefaces on the readers of grant  
applications?  Maybe it might be worth putting in a grant application  
for a research project to investigate that...

-- Rob Spence
Applied Linguistics
Saarland University
Germany




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